A research group in the Hirose-Fukushima Lab at Tokyo Institute of Technology is doing R&D on an amphibious snake robot.
This robot moves by twisting its body mimicking an actual snake. The motion is almost the same on land and in water.
One feature of this robot is its joints, which combine bellows with universal joints. In this structure, the bellows prevent water from penetrating the universal joints.
Another feature is that the robot's body is covered by passive wheels and paddles. To obtain the propulsive force to twist the body, the robot must slide easily in the direction tangential to the body, but not in the perpendicular direction. The wheels and paddles enable this to be achieved on land and in water.
Each joint unit has a CPU, battery, and motor. Each unit exchanges signals independently, and automatically recognizes how far behind the head it is and how many joints there are in the body. This makes it possible to add and replace joints freely.
This robot can be seen at the Bio-Mimicry in Robots exhibition at the Science Museum in Tokyo, until August 22.
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Amphibious snake-like robot "ACM-R5" | Hirose Fukushima Lab
